/ ‘KAH-shee-Ah /

How about you? What have you thought or said when God called your child to Kingdom work? What steps did you take—or fail to take—to raise your child in the faith? How often have we used our lips to dedicate our children to God, but in our hearts, withheld them?

I reflect on my life and see how many red seas have been split, how many miracles have taken place, and how God has (and many times did not) intervene for my greater good through prayers. I encourage you to think of the many times God intervened (or didn’t) in your life; you will find it tracing back to a prayer you have made or someone else made on your behalf.

Hagar calls him the “God of Seeing,” reflecting the profound friendship that Jesus embodies. This is the kind of friendship that Jesus has, one that would make him selflessly leave his throne to comfort someone like Hagar, a slave, a gentile, a nobody.

We all have a family origin story, trials and tribulations of some sort, and people who have shaped who we are for the needs that God knew our children would require. God gave us the strength (and courage) we required before we knew we needed it.

Disciplemakers are God's agents for his redeeming plan for creation. This means that we have more to hope for as we sit across the table from our disciples, children, peers or in a room of our fellow ministry members.

I am not saying it’s sinful to buy a dress or take a vacation here and there. But what I am saying is that my conviction leads me to understand that when I withhold tithe to God because of my fleshly desire to self-indulge in my wants, I cheat him out of what he deserves. I like to think that I am Able, but it turns out I play the role of being Cain.